Hope's Heartbeat

Runner's up in the 15-18 Puffin/RTE Short Story Competition 2015. 997 words.

It’s natural for a woman to have a baby, but I’m sixteen. That can’t be natural- I’m still a child myself.  My mother says this is an important decision, and I have lots to think about, but I don’t. A pregnant teenager is a problem, and when people have a problem, they solve it. I think that’s it in a nutshell, really. So, if I have an opportunity to stop this problem, I’ll take it. It’s logical. Really, think about it- it’s not even born yet. Does it even have a heartbeat?

  I’m still coming to terms with the fact I’m here- labour. I was blind enough to let my mother convince me to keep it seven and a half months ago, and the excruciating pain is enough to make me regret my decision.

  It’s out, and it’s letting off a siren-wail, giving me a bursting headache. The clamour of yells and shrieks rushes through my skull, forcing the pulse of blood to thump like a drum. The nurses hand it to me, swaddled in pastel pink, trying to make it seem cuter than it actually is.

  My mother told me when I was born, there was an instant connection. Why isn’t there one now? Was I not screeching? Just as I begin to wonder if there’s something wrong with the way I feel, its eyes open, causing my heart to race. She has her father’s eyes. The eyes that turned away from me when I announced my pregnancy. The thought of that memory sickens me, but I’m even more disgusted at myself- I almost abandoned her too. As her crying dies away, she grasps my thumb, to gesture her understanding of my feelings. Her eyes do have something about them that differ from her father’s.

  Without her, I may have never discovered the kind of person he really was. Maybe I would have been stuck with him for my whole life. Now, she gives me something to live for- hope. I feel it inside of me right now, and its telling me my life is about to change.

  It’s Hope’s first day of school, and she brought home a picture book of exotic birds. Fascinated by their vivid colours, she asks me if we can go to the rainforest to see them.

  “Maybe not a rainforest,” I answer. “But there are other colourful birds around here, too.”

  “No there’s not,” she stubbornly remonstrated. “There’s only crows in the city. They’re not colourful.”

  “Well, maybe for your birthday in a few months, we’ll go outside the city to see better ones,” I negotiated.

  True to my word, for Hope’s birthday, we drive to a secluded forest outside the city, prestigious for holding the birds of Ireland. Too excited to wait, Hope scampers in front of me, her boots already dirty from the muck.

  We spend an unimpressed hour of observing nothing but trees, before witnessing a remarkably proud pheasant. Keeping as quiet and still as the trees, we bask in its aesthetic appearance, each of its colours brush-stroked onto its feathers. He lordly swaggers around, his head jutting out with every step, before spreading his wings and taking off into flight.

  Hope laughs with excitement at his take off, gazing with utter wonder. He weaves around the trees, each swoosh of his wings like a heartbeat, until suddenly- bang. Shot by a hunter, his previously strong wings give up on his body. I immediately turn my gaze to Hope, her eyes rid of the thrill she had a few seconds ago. She bursts into hysteria, not crying this much since the day she was born. We drive home, and I try my best to forget how long she waited for something which is now dead.

  It’s been two weeks since Hope’s birthday, and she hasn’t slept since. I tell her to count sheep, but her excuse is that the farm she thinks of always runs out of sheep before she gets to sleep. Trying my best to keep serious, I suggest she should count her heartbeats, because it’ll be a long time before she runs out of them. It seems logical to her, so she agrees to try it and asks me to stay until she falls asleep. I sit down beside her, her hand grasping mine like the day she was born.

  Her grip slowly loosening from my hand signals me to leave. Standing up, I look forward to collapsing into bed, when I unexpectedly hear her muttering voice asking me: “Do you think if the hunter heard the pheasant’s heartbeat, he would have still shot him?”

  I don’t answer, and stay awake all night, afraid to fall asleep.

  It’s Hope’s first day of college, and she’s going to study ecology. Hard to believe she still cares about preserving nature, thirteen years later. She assures me she’s okay when I ask her if she’s nervous, but the fact we’ve been outside the college for fifteen minutes would imply otherwise. I can practically hear her heart racing.

  Finally, she takes a steady breath, and smiles unsurely at me.

  “All right, I’m going now.”

  “See you. Good luck.”

  I sense her heart run faster as she steps out of the car, and it gets quicker still as she walks further away and further away. Something doesn’t feel right- it’s refusing to leave my mind.

  Pounding against my eardrums, I get a cold sense as it gets even louder. She’s walking towards something- it’s a large white light in front of her. Panicking, I scream out for her to stop, when I realise I’m in my bedroom, alone.

  It happened again- another nightmare. I can’t go to sleep ever since that day- the day I neglected my mother’s opinion on my ‘logical’ decision. The day I went to the clinic where the nurse turned down the volume of the sonogram machine- the day my child’s heartbeat was muted twice, at just six weeks. The day I lost my Hope.